6 interns, 6 laptops, 8 sec. shutter speed...

Note: I wasn't actually involved in the making of this picture. Just received it via email from John Mishanski through an internal mailing list some days ago, and thought it was cool enough to share. :)

It's been almost two weeks since the last update, so I guess I'm going to bundle a whole bunch of things into one disorganized post.

Work has been picking up nicely. The initial learning curve is pretty steep - the codebase is massive, it's a new build environment, there are lots of tools that you learn to use, and it often takes time to find out who the right person to talk to is when you have questions about something in particular. But I'm getting a hang of things, and enjoying it all.

Besides working, I've been attending lots of tech talks on campus; I try to go to at least one every week. Sometimes, the speakers are other Googlers talking about the work they're doing, and sometimes they're people from outside the company who have been invited to present something new and interesting.

Last week, for example, I went to check out a presentation by Rick Woodbury, the President of CommuterCars, a company based in Spokane, WA. Rick's team builds this fully electric car called the Tango, that can go from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds and fits in half a freeway lane. They actually managed to bring the car to the second floor of the building. It's a neat little vehicle, although you're going to have to shell out over $100K for one until it starts being mass-produced. George Clooney was apparently their first customer. And speaking of electric cars, the Tesla Roadster was also unveiled this week. Gorgeous car that uses Lithium-ion batteries to run 250 miles on a full charge. Is the electric car finally on its way towards making a comeback?

Other than that, we've been watching lots of movies here in the apartment at night after work. One of my housemates, Aaron, has a projector that we use, so it's a mini-theater like experience. I've also started watching episodes of Entourage from the beginning. It's just an entertaining, laidback show that's fun to watch at the end of the day.

So that's the update for now. More later, hopefully without the two week gap this time around... :)

As promised, here are some pictures of the main campus that I quickly took this morning. Click for larger versions...

Hotmail turned 10 years old last week. I logged into my Live account and realized that I registered my Hotmail address on November 25, 1997...almost 9 years ago! It was my very first email address, and I still use it as my Windows Live Messenger ID today.


Email has become such a big part of our lives, it's hard to imagine how we did without it. Remember sending letters to friends and family by snail-mail and waiting for several days, and sometimes even weeks before you got back a response? Do you remember when you got your first email address, and how awestruck you were at the nearly instantaneous speed of delivery? :)

On my first day of work, I arrived at the Googleplex early, and since I didn't have a badge yet, I checked in as a visitor and sat down in the Building 43 lobby, waiting for the orientation folks to show up. There was a copy of the MetropolisMag on the table in front of me, and on the cover was the title of an article about the design of the Google campus - "Behind the Glass Curtain."

It was an interesting read, and there were lots of pictures (bear in mind that I hadn't actually been inside any of the buildings then). Take a look if you're curious to see what the environment here is like. Of course, the whole place is much busier (and consequently, less pristine-looking) during the day, but the pictures give you a general idea of what it looks like. I'll also try to post some pictures of the campus and the building where I work sometime soon.